1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to new polymers that can exhibit significantly improved lithographic results to a photoresist comprising the polymer, processes for producing such polymers and photoresists that contain the polymers. Synthetic methods of the invention include regular or substantially continuous addition of one or more polymer precursors to a reaction mixture occurs over the course of the polymer synthesis. Preferred polymers of the invention are suitable for use in photoresists imaged at short wavelengths such as sub-250 nm or sub-200 nm, particularly 248 nm, 193 nm and 157 nm.
2. Background
Photoresists are photosensitive films used for transfer of images to a substrate. A coating layer of a photoresist is formed on a substrate and the photoresist layer is then exposed through a photomask to a source of activating radiation. The photomask has areas that are opaque to activating radiation and other areas that are transparent to activating radiation. Exposure to activating radiation provides a photoinduced chemical transformation of the photoresist coating to thereby transfer the pattern of the photomask to the photoresist-coated substrate. Following exposure, the photoresist is developed to provide a relief image that permits selective processing of a substrate.
A photoresist can be either positive-acting or negative-acting. For most negative-acting photoresists, those coating layer portions that are exposed to activating radiation polymerize or crosslink in a reaction between a photoactive compound and polymerizable reagents of the photoresist composition. Consequently, the exposed coating portions are rendered less soluble in a developer solution than unexposed portions. For a positive-acting photoresist, exposed portions are rendered more soluble in a developer solution while areas not exposed remain comparatively less developer soluble.
More recently, chemically-amplified-type resists have been increasingly employed, particularly for formation of sub-micron images and other high performance applications. Such photoresists may be negative-acting or positive-acting and generally include many crosslinking events (in the case of a negative-acting resist) or deprotection reactions (in the case of a positive-acting resist) per unit of photogenerated acid. In the case of positive chemically-amplified resists, certain cationic photoinitiators have been used to induce cleavage of certain “blocking” groups pendant from a photoresist binder, or cleavage of certain groups that comprise a photoresist binder backbone. See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,075,199; 4,968,581; 4,883,740; 4,810,613; and 4,491,628, and Canadian Patent Application 2,001,384. Upon cleavage of the blocking group through exposure of a coating layer of such a resist, a polar functional group is formed, e.g., carboxyl or imide, which results in different solubility characteristics in exposed and unexposed areas of the resist coating layer. See also R. D. Allen et al., Proceedings of SPIE, 2724:334–343 (1996); and P. Trefonas et al. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Photopolymers (Soc. Of Plastics Engineers), pp 44–58 (Oct. 6, 1997).
Interest also has increased in photoresists that can be photoimaged with short wavelength radiation, including exposure radiation of about 250 nm or less, or even about 200 nm or less, such as wavelengths of about 248 nm (provided by KrF laser) or 193 nm (provided by an ArF exposure tool). See European Published Application EP915382A2. Quite recently, imaging at 157 nm has been proposed. See Kunz et al., SPIE Proceedings, (Advances in Resist Technology), vol. 3678, pages 13–23 (1999). Use of such short exposure wavelengths can enable formation of smaller features. Accordingly, a photoresist that yields well-resolved images upon 248 nm, 193 nm or 157 nm exposure could enable formation of extremely small (e.g. sub-0.25 μm) features that respond to constant industry demands for smaller dimension circuit patters, e.g. to provide greater circuit density and enhanced device performance.
However, many current photoresists are generally designed for imaging at relatively higher wavelengths, such as G-line (436 nm) and I-line (365 nm) are generally unsuitable for imaging at short wavelengths such as sub-200 nm. Even shorter wavelength resists, such as those effective at 248 nm exposures, also are generally unsuitable for sub-200 nm exposures, such as 193 nm and 157 nm imaging.
It thus would be desirable to have new photoresist compositions, particularly resist compositions that can be imaged at short wavelengths such as sub-200 nm exposure wavelengths, particularly 193 nm and 157 nm. It also would be desirable to have new resin components for use in such photoresists.